Your Grade

While I only knew three Shania Twain songs total prior to tonight (and only one of those was sung), I did learn something new about her body of work: that it's much less interesting when sung by somebody who doesn't look like a supermodel. Even Crystal Bowersox couldn't make it happen tonight. It was so boring and overall ballady that I almost wanted someone to sing badly, just to spice things up, but everyone sang well: well and dull. I feel like I'm shirking my work tonight but I really just don't have much to say about anyone except Crystal, and in that case it's just because it was so unusual for me not to be into one of her performances.

Lee kicked things off with "You're Still the One" (the only song I recognized tonight.) I actually thought he sounded, as they say, pitchy throughout the song, not exactly nailing the notes, especially the softer lower ones but Randy loved it and so did the rest of the judges. This pretty much set the tone for nearly the whole night, me going "Eh" and the judges going "Whee!"

Mike sang "It Only Hurts When I'm Breathing," and he sang it fine but I don't remember anything about the song. I can say exactly the same thing about Casey's performance, too, with "Don't." The judges were largely positive about both, in fact in Casey's case telling him it was his best night to date.

It'll suck if Crystal gets sent home tomorrow night based on tonight's performance. She sang "No One Needs to Know" and had a charming setup onstage with upright bass, mandolin, snare and slide guitar players but the song just seemed so not-her, all cutesy and folksy. I'm not anti-Crystal singing a quieter song or singing about a boy (which was what she was doing, apparently trying to pressure her boyfriend, who was in the audience, to propose to her), but it just didn't feel like a very Crystal performance (and she didn't do a great job hitting the high notes, either). This was the one song of the night that the judges were unanimously unpsyched-about, and Simon compared it to something from a coffeeshop and even felt confident enough in his dislike to tell Shania that it's a dumb song. At least Crystal's boyfriend is cute?

Aaron sang "You've Got a Way," once again, a song that came off pleasant but dull, thus impressing the judges. Apparently there was a line in there about "making love" that he changed because, goompf, he was singing the song to his mother. Ellen at least was funny in her critique, when she told Aaron it's so impressive that he's only 16. "I'm 17, actually," he said. "Well then I'm not as impressed," she said.

Finally, Siobhan sang "Any Man of Mine," going country. I thought the song started off cute and sassy for her but I got thrown off by the way the rhythm of her singing seemed to switch up every few bars and also by her running around the audience giving fives. The combination of those two things made her sound a little out of breath. Then she finished with what I thought was a very indulgent bit of screaming. The judges all liked it a lot, although Simon at least was with me on the screaming thing.

Maybe I'm just the idiot for not knowing Shania Twain's music (and considering how many records she's sold I'm possibly in the minority) but tonight I didn't come away appreciating her catalogue any more than before. At least tomorrow night we get to hear that titan of country music, Shakira.